Lead me home
by OtterAndTerrier
Summary: Ron learns that a house is not a home. Home is where the heart is.


I haven't written in a loooong time and it shows. Please excuse me if this is too cheesy or well-worn. I wanted to write something for **lectura35** as a birthday present and as thank you for being such an amazing person, and inspiration came through Mumford & Sons' song, Home, which I find beautiful. It's Ron's POV, just in case. To me, it was a small catharsis as to what home really means, and I found it right for Ron. Enjoy, and thanks a lot to Shannon for the speedy help! :)

On a side note, I must apologize again for the lack of updates for The Story of Me, You and Magic. I threw in one single chapter, caught your attention and looks like I've dropped it, but in reality, I've been really very busy and the next chapter is hard to write. I do have more chapters written, though!

Hope you're all doing all right, and thanks for reading!

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><p><strong>Lead me home<strong>

For years, I believed that The Burrow was my home. I'm not saying it wasn't, but the reasons I believed so were different than what I think now, maybe even a little wrong... well, perhaps not so wrong for a young boy. My reasons at the time were simple: at The Burrow I had my family—even though at times they became a little unbearable, I never stopped loving them—, I had food—to be honest, I had my mum's delicious dishes, which can't compare to any other kind of food—, and I had a roof over my head and a bed to lie in at night—crowded and crooked and everything second-hand and used too many times, but it was mine.

Then I turned eleven, and something that I had been looking forward to for ages happened: I got the letter that said that I had a place at Hogwarts. To me, it wasn't a confirmation that I was a wizard. That was a bit obvious. I suspected I wasn't going to be a great thing, but I had definitely shown signs of magic; there wasn't a chance of me not being magical. To me, that letter meant the opening of a whole new world. True, I knew what lay ahead: the pressure of being sorted into Gryffindor, getting good grades, not getting into trouble, the humiliation of my second-hand stuff, and the second-hand popularity of my family name, meaning that I was unlikely to make a reputation of my own during my seven years at Hogwarts. But it also meant some sort of freedom, and a space of my own. It meant growing up. It meant meeting new people, making friends. It meant that, for most of the year, I would be living in a new home.

My definition of a home didn't change much for Hogwarts. I still had my family around—all right, not all of them, but certainly most—, I still had amazing food—I had never before believed in the existence of anything to compete with mum's skills—I still had a roof and a bed—and the castle under the roof was crowded and the bed had certainly been used far many too times as to think of it. But I also had two friends who were like family—well, one of them was like a brother and the other, thankfully, never felt like a sister—and I did form some reputation of my own, although not always the way I liked it.

So for years home meant either The Burrow or Hogwarts, although during a short time, home was also Number 12 Grimmauld Place. Thing is, when I said "I'm going back home," it always meant The Burrow because, no matter what, my heart had always been there.

At some point, though, through my magical education, my heart did something funny. It kind of moved, so that it was now shared between The Burrow and Hogwarts. I really missed Hogwarts during the summer holidays. And I knew I didn't miss History of Magic. Or McGonagall—worse, Snape. Or the blast-ended screwts. I didn't miss homework and exams. Or almost getting killed every weekend—well, I did miss the adrenaline of it. And yeah, I missed Harry, but I don't think the prat was a powerful enough reason to actually move my heart. Or maybe he was, but we were together most of the time anyway. No, there was something else.

During the last year, my definition of home did change many times. Again for a short period, we returned to Grimmauld Place. It was safe and we were protected—or we thought we were. We had food, a roof, a bed, and we were together, almost like a family. But it was a house, not a home. It was oppressive, dark, and it held too many memories of the people who had fallen: Sirius, Dumbledore, Moody. And then, somehow, it got worse. We were living in a battered tent, obviously with no proper roof, with no food, except for the fungi, and without a family, because we weren't only isolated from the outside world, we were isolated from each other. Of a sudden, Harry was a traitor, taking away from me everything I used to have, and _she_was a traitor, too. Or at least that's what it—the Horcrux—told me. The tent wasn't a home either, and I wanted to go home. To The Burrow, to be precise.

I wasn't thinking clearly, evaluating the consequences of going back to my family with the news that _I_was a traitor to my friends, that I had left them to die, so I would have thought I would go there anyway, and I didn't. I just Apparated to a random forest, which wasn't strange to me at all because we had been camping there mere weeks earlier. In that forest, Hermione and I had discussed the lack of a plan. I was lying on my bunk bed, my arm still injured, wearing the Horcrux, and she was sitting on an armchair right in front of me with her books. But we were talking, and I was being harsh on Harry. She was agreeing with me in some points, but I could see she looked guilty at the same time for talking behind Harry's back. I was getting angry at her, frustrated with every excuse she made for him. She saw it, reached for my neck, and took the locket off me. Something changed with that; I felt better. Not loads better, but good enough to feel her hand brushing against my skin. The intensity of her gaze, as if she wanted me to understand something. I wasn't good enough to understand that something.

It was in that forest that the snatchers caught me. So I didn't head for The Burrow then. I didn't head for The Burrow later, either, when I managed to escape. By that time, my head was clearer and cooler than before, and I decided Bill's house was a much better place for me to stay.

At Shell Cottage, I had food, I had a roof and a bed, and I even had family. But it was a home to Bill and Fleur; it wasn't a home to me. The weight of regret, guilt and self-loathing was stronger than any relief at being safe and alive. Most importantly, they weren't with me. She wasn't with me. I might as well have been living under a bridge for all I cared.

That was when I realized what home meant to me. It wasn't about the food or the bed or the roof. It wasn't even about the people you're related to by blood. It's where your heart is. It took me a couple of days to realize what had left that hole in me. All those years I spent putting up with this beating thing inside me, jumping at the sight of someone who was supposed to be my friend, boiling and roaring then painfully ripping itself apart in jealousy, sinking to the pit of my stomach when we were alone, disappearing to somewhere I didn't know when she wasn't around. Then I knew; it had stayed behind where it belonged.

I wanted to go home, and I knew where home was.

Now I'm finally able to kick off my shoes, toss away my ragged, dirty robes, and lie in the bed that used to be mine, in the castle that was my second home for years and now has nothing to offer me other than grief.

She lies next to me. We haven't talked much in the last hours, not about us, but we know that we're together. Right now, we can't afford to think of whether it's appropriate or awkward to sleep together in the same bed, or to discuss the terms of our relationship, or even to apologize for anything. Not right now.

She burrows her head right under my chin, against my neck, lays a hand on my chest, and says, 'We're home.'

And I say, 'I know I am.'


End file.
